The long and the short of DNA replication

The long and the short of DNA replication

6 years ago
Anonymous $2WKDXfy9lA

https://phys.org/news/2018-06-short-dna-replication.html

If errors occur in DNA replication, cells can become abnormal and give rise to disease. DNA code that has mutated to allow the cell to divide uncontrollably, for instance, can lead to cancer. This makes it crucial to understand how enzymes replicate and repair DNA, says Manal Zaher, the Ph.D. student in Samir Hamdan's group at KAUST, who led the study.

Zaher investigated the enzymes that allow short DNA strands formed during DNA replication, called Okazaki fragments, to link up into a continuous string of DNA.